


sharp bright stars

by scioscribe



Category: True Detective
Genre: Cancer, Gen, Old Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 14:04:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1901784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some fates of all life have never been secret.</p><p>("I always thought I'd be the one to die first," Marty said.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	sharp bright stars

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Sharp Bright Stars 夜空中最亮的星](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2263503) by [OOOOshirkeOOOO](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OOOOshirkeOOOO/pseuds/OOOOshirkeOOOO), [Virgil (alucard1771)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alucard1771/pseuds/Virgil)



“I always thought I’d be the one to die first,” Marty said. “I had a whole plan worked up for it.”

“You didn’t do as much shit to your body as I did to mine, so—”

“Rust,” Marty said, “I’m trying to tell you about my plan.”

Rust lifted his hand: _go on_.

“I’d be on my death-bed and you’d be to the stage where you’re trying out nontraditional medicines, like sprinkling sage on me and humming, and then I’d see the light open up and know it was time. So I’d grab your sleeve and pull you down, and for my last words, right in your ear, I’d whisper, ‘Nietzsche… was an asshole,’ and then croak.”

Rust nodded. “Well, it sounds like you planned it pretty good.”

“Yeah. Leave it to you to fuck it up.” He stroked his thumb hard across the backs of Rust’s knuckles over and over again, like Rust’s bones were a piano that would play a chord to make the whole thing beautiful.

*

Marty devoted careful attention to the paraphernalia of Rust’s illness. Rust caught him polishing the oxygen tank once.

He also called Maggie, who didn’t come over, but who faxed them pamphlets and briskly written instructions with sometimes an annotation or two like a drop of blood on the page: _he can drink if he wants to, he’s past all that now._

Rust didn’t drink. He read, mostly. He ordered books to be delivered so that when they got to the house, Marty would slit the packing tape with his box-cutter and unload them one by one, offering running commentary on each, a pleasure Rust could not have had any other way. “But wash your hands first,” he said the third time they ran through the rigmarole of it. “Dorito stains on half of them last time.”

*

“Tell you what we could do,” Marty said.

Rust didn’t know what was going to follow that, exactly, whether it was going to be something Marty read on the internet— _we could inject shark’s blood into your spine, Rust, we could_ —or whether it was going to be something worse, more unbearable— _we could make sure we went out together._ He said, “No,” quickly, in case it was the latter.

Marty looked at him steadily. “No?” he said.

“No.”

*

After the worst coughing fit yet, Marty got into bed beside Rust and leaned back against the headboard. Rust put a hand on his chest and felt how quickly and how shallowly it was going up and down. “Shit,” he said. “You’re almost in as bad of shape as I am.”

Marty looked down at Rust’s hand against his heart. At the pulse-oximeter on Rust’s fingertip. Rust could feel his attention gathering on that plastic clip and what it meant, so he drew up Marty’s hand and stacked it on top of his so that they were both looking at the fine hairs and thick veins on Marty instead. Rust’s hands had always been finer, more precision-made. It was Marty’s hands he’d chosen to put himself into, rather than his own, as though he had assessed them—tendons, grip—and made the choice on that alone. Said, _These will hold me up._

Marty’s breathing smoothed out. He said, “If you do that again, I can’t promise I won’t trach you with a ballpoint or something. Saw that on the Discovery Channel.”

Rust had the truth in his head— _There’s not gonna be a next time_ —but didn’t say it. Made the bed a place of silent reflection.

*

“ _Die Hard_?” Marty said incredulously. “It’s your turn to pick the movie and you want to watch _Die Hard_?”

Rust nodded. “Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker,” he drawled.

“This shit’s spread to your brain. You’re not yourself. I rented fucking Lars von Trier and you want to watch _Die Hard_.”

He flattened his hand against Rust’s forehead and Rust shook him off.

There was almost nothing Rust had to leave Marty. He hadn’t accumulated funds of any remarkable nature and he had skated by for too long on what had been left of his savings—no point planning for retirement when the last case would empty him out of his skull like ash from an ash-tray. He had not counted on reunion. Had not counted on living. (Had not counted on dying like this.) He had no house, no dog, no _Antique Roadshow_ special treasure. A truck with a busted taillight.

The only thing he had left to give Marty was his time.

*

He woke up and he was drowning.

Marty, above him, was blurry and indistinct. The one beam of light through the clouds on a day more silver with cold than any day before it. “Rust,” he was saying over and over again. “Rust. Come on.”

Rust grabbed at his sleeve. The words in his head to say Nietzsche was a genius. He said, instead, “I’ll catch you. When it’s time. When you fall,” into the belly of warm darkness that was the aftermath of the world, into the arms that were on offer. All he had to say of love. “I’ll catch you.”

 

 

Mr. Hart’s family visited him from time to time. He received them with the politest of smiles, a man who did not remember them but felt, shamefully, that he may have bumped into them on the street and not apologized.

He called every orderly Rust. “Rust,” he said, “Rust, why the hell haven’t you broken me out yet? I broke you out. Rust. Rust, you have to come.”

But if they wheeled him to a window at night he would sit quietly and watch the stars.


End file.
